


The Case of the Missing Eyebrow

by FallonSong



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Crack, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-18
Updated: 2012-04-18
Packaged: 2017-11-03 20:38:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/385686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FallonSong/pseuds/FallonSong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Cas, where is your eyebrow?"</p><p>Thus was the question, and why was the angel trying so hard to impress Dean?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Case of the Missing Eyebrow

“Cas, where is your eyebrow?” Dean asked, gawking at his friend in disbelief, for Castiel’s right eyebrow was simply gone, leaving only an arc of whiteness where it had been before.

Now you’re thinking, where did Castiel’s eyebrow go? Well it’s a long story that can possibly be made short, but the point is, it was gone, and Dean had no idea how to handle it.  
And before we learn why Castiel’s eyebrow was gone, we must first know what compelled him to put himself in a situation where it could have been ‘removed’.

 

Dean had taken on the task of teaching Castiel everything there was to know about being human, which he discovered was a lot. Castiel didn’t even know how to cook, or drive a car, or operate a laptop.

Some of the things had been fun to teach and all of them had been, yeah Dean could admit it, cute to watch.

Like teaching Castiel to drive had been a real delight. Of course, Dean may have some kind of soft spot for the angel, but there was no way he was letting him practice driving in his Impala. No way in hell. He didn’t even let Sam drive it for a long while, so he rented some crappy car that handled well and set Cas behind the wheel.

“Dean, is it necessary to have my foot applying pressure the entire time?” he kept asking angrily. The car jerked down the road, randomly speeding up and slowing to hardly a crawl at times.

“You have to apply even pressure, Cas. Hang in there.”

They have inched their way down the entire road without fail when Castiel seemed to get the gist of things and the car remained almost at a constant speed.

“There ya go!” Dean exclaimed, almost proudly.

Teaching him to cook was harder, because Dean himself held little skill in the area, and though Dean could be to blame for the loss of Cas’s eyebrow, that does not matter. Because it happened, and the events leading to it start there.

“You put the stuff you want in between the bread, and it’s a sandwich,” he explained. If Cas knew how to make a sandwich, he would be fine. That’s all a man really needed, after all.

“Anything at all?” Cas asked, a hint of sneakiness in his voice.

“Yeah,” said Dean hesitantly, not particularly enjoying the hint of mischief in Castiel’s blue eyes.

“So, I’m going to sit in here and do some research on the local werewolf. Enjoy the food.”

The werewolf was an elusive one, and they had to spend more time in the town than they normally did, so Sam booked them a fancier hotel room and had bought a lot of groceries to feed Dean’s massive appetite. It was one of those instances where Dean suddenly felt like the younger brother, which triggered guilt, which triggered the urge to eat, which in turn the guilt was chased away by food. Dean was well on his way to becoming like one of those wailing girls fresh out of a breakup that shoved cake in her mouth to make herself feel better.

His job demanded that he be fit, but the way he was eating….

“Dean. I have brought you some food. I heard your stomach growling a moment ago.”

“Oh thanks, man.”

Dean turned to take the food from the angel and froze. In Cas’s hands was…something. A slab of raw hamburger meat was bundled in between two pieces of white bread, decorated with a pile of ketchup and mayonnaise and three slices of cheese.

“Cas,” Dean said, eyes wide. “What is that?”

Castiel beamed, actually turning his soft lips up into a smile.

“A cheeseburger. I know they are your favorite.”

Dean blinked, eying the monstrosity. If Sam had made him this, he would be slamming it in his brother’s face and laughing, but this was different. Castiel generally didn’t understand almost anything, and he was trying to be helpful. If it had been when he first met him, and this event occurred, Dean would have probably said some choice curse words and raged about how Castiel was insane. But they had been through so much together, and Castiel had taken a spot in a large section of Dean’s heart, sharing it almost equally with Bobby, Sam, and pie.

Geez, now he certainly sounded like one of those fat girls stuffing her face with cake!

As looked up to meet Cas’s eyes, his resolve melted and he stretched out his hands to take the ‘burger’.

“Thanks, Cas.”

Castiel beamed, sitting down on the other bed and turning to watch the T.V., which was showing an I Love Lucy episode.

Dean eyed the burger, wondering if he could possibly shove it under the bed and pretend to eat it.

“Dean? Is something the matter? You look…torn.”

Dean felt his eye twitch; there was so much ketchup!

“Nope. Not at all.”

He took a bite, feeling the ketchup ooze in his mouth.

 

THREE DAYS LATER

 

“Sick? You’re sick, Dean? We finally kill the werewolf and are ready to get out of this stupid town, and you get sick?!”

Sam threw his hands up exasperatedly, storming out of the room.

“I’m going to the bar!” he yelled, slamming the door.

Castiel frowned, scratching the back of his neck.

“Dean. Why aren’t you feeling well?”

Dean, laying on the couch swathed in blankets, shrugged lazily.

“Dean.”

There was a brief pause in the room as Castiel stood rigidly in the doorway, eyes narrowed and Dean tried his best to avoid his eyes because he could lie to a lot of people, but never Castiel. Castiel knew him before he even really knew himself, and he had dragged him out of the worst nightmare. It was near impossible to lie to him. No, it was.

“The burger made me sick, alright?” he admitted after a moment.

Castiel’s face crumpled briefly, only for a split second, but enough to tear at Dean’s heart.

“Look, it was great! You just had to remember to cook the meat, Cas. It was good, really.”

“It made you sick!”, Cas said wretchedly, wringing his hands. He usually kept better control of his emotions, but he seemed genuinely depressed to have caused Dean some kind of pain.

“I’ll be back!” he practically shouted, jaw set.

“Hey! Where are you going?” Dean shouted, a bit too late; the still air was filled with the sound of movement, of wings flapping lightly before quickly decrescendoing into silence.

“Fine!” he called after the angel, crossing his arms and pouting at being left alone.

Castiel appeared in the nearest supermarket, frightening an old lady when he materialized beside her.

“Oh!” she cried, clutching at her chest.

“You frightened me,” she admonished, her shaky hand straightening her glasses.

Castiel eyed her for a moment before deciding she could possibly be useful. It was apparently true that with his kind ignorance of the human race was a trait maintained through all existence, but humans became more knowledgeable throughout every year.

This woman would surely know plenty!

“Do you know how to please a man?”, he asked her.

She blinked rapidly, eyes wide. She opened and closed her mouth several times before she decided she had indeed heard him right.

“Well, have you cooked for him?” she asked at last. This elderly woman, as luck would have it, had always been accepting towards all kinds of people, even Castiel’s kind. Once her slower mind deciphered the fact that he was gay, she discovered something to say that didn’t sound scared or rude.

Of course, Castiel didn’t know that he belonged to an even more diverse group of people at the time, but he did know the woman was smiling at him and her tone was helpful.

“I did,” he told her somberly. “It didn’t work out well. I made him a hamburger and it has made him ill.”

The woman eyed him thoughtfully before asking, “Did you cook the meat well enough, dear?”

Castiel’s blue eyes became anguished.

“I didn’t know I was supposed to cook it! No one explained it to me.”

“Well here is what I think you should do….”

And so the two stood alone in the isle, the elderly woman making broad hand gestures and Castiel nodding intently, taking mental notes as people passed by and stared, avoiding the isle even if they needed something important from it.

 

“Castiel, what are you doing in there?” Dean yelled over the couch.

The angel had swooped out and vanished for three hours, returning with bags and shuffling into the kitchen before Dean could get a word in edgewise. Sam was still off at the bar; hooking up with a girl or two, Dean thought proudly.

“Wait!”

“Caaaaas!” he groaned, throwing his head against the armrest of the couch. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to fight off the nausea. He was sure that Cas’s ‘burger’ only partly contributed to the sickness. When they had finally killed the werewolf, it had been raining terribly and Dean had been barefoot- don’t ask. Just know that sometimes the hunts called for sacrifices.

Though the crippling pain in his stomach was courtesy of Castiel, the sneezing and aches were his own dumb fault. He had tried to tell the angel that, but he had swooped out like Birdman before anything could be said.

“Alright, Dean.”

Castiel emerged, wearing a suit and a tie, sort of. It was looped wrong entirely, skewed and hiding almost in the shoulder of his jacket. In his hands he carried a bowl of what smelled gloriously, and looked, like chicken stew.

“Oh, Cas. I love you!” Dean cried, scrambling into a sitting position.

Castiel locked eyes with him, and somehow the statement grabbed more weight than intended. Dean felt his face heat up slightly. He cleared his throat and reached out.

“Well let’s taste it. It looks like you used the stove!”

Castiel smiled, stepping forward and the moment was perfect and warm; Dean even felt his heart flutter a bit. He didn’t really know why he was in a suit, but it looked good. He was just beginning to tell him so when Castiel tripped.

“Cas!” Dean cried, tugging away the blankets away and trying to get to his friend.

“Sam’s laptop case is out,” Cas told the carpet.

“Yeah,” Dean laughed, helping Castiel up. “Look, I’ll get us another bowl. Why don’t you change?”

Castile struggled to a sitting position, frowning down at the mess on his tux, and then at Dean.

“I am sorry. I was just trying to make things better. And I have no other clothes to change into.”

Dean shrugged, picking up the bowl and going to retrieve a towel from the bathroom.

“Wear some of mine.”

Castile smiled, drifting over to Dean’s duffel bag. The Winchesters didn’t worry much about clothes, obviously. Everything was stuffed into a little duffel that was usually crammed underneath the driver’s seat.

The only reason they had brought their clothes in the hotel was because this hunt had taken far longer than expected.

Castiel curiously pulled out some sweatpants, then a shirt that said ‘Dr. Sexy’ on it. Cas, recalling that Dean enjoyed the man, and the show, grabbed it anxiously.

At this point, Castiel knew good and well he liked Dean more than he should have. Even more than Sam liked the girls at the bar, or Dean liked the random loose women he hung around with. The question simply became, did Dean like him as well? Castiel learned that attraction most of the time didn’t work both ways, and after all his years of being a soldier of Heaven, he finally had something to lose.

He resolutely marched into the bathroom, closing the cabinet Dean had left open after getting the towel, and cleaning himself off. Pulling on the loose clothes, Castiel felt a bit more relaxed. Maybe he could explain the desire for Dean to be his soul mate. He would just have to find a way to do so without frightening him.

The two shared Dean’s couch and watched the I Love Lucy marathon while Dean explained certain jokes that were made, all the time complimenting Cas’s stew. Dean didn’t have to lie this time; Castiel’s stew was spectacular. He wondered where he had flown off to. Maybe Heaven’s crash course in cooking? Whatever. Maybe he would go again and continue to make them food like this. It gave a homely touch to the hotel room, in Dean’s opinion, and he liked that very much.

“I don’t mind if you spill anything on the Dr. Sexy shirt,” he told Cas, eyeing the looser clothing. He looked a lot different, but it was kind of adorable how childish he looked in pajama type clothing.

“I know how much you enjoy him, so I will refrain from spilling anything on his name.”

“Right,” Dean said, taking another bite of the stew. “So why are you eating anyway? You don’t have to, you know.”

Castiel looked into his bowl, blue eyes almost bewildered. “I am not sure. It just felt appropriate we eat together.”

Dean cocked an eyebrow, and then smiled. Castiel was saying strange things lately, but Dean found that he didn’t mind too much.

“I think I like the way he shaves. Perfect amount of scruff, you know?”

Castiel’s eyes flew wide with a sudden realization.

“So you like men that are slightly shaven?!” he practically yelled.

His hands flew to his own beard, which had grown out to the slightest degree, but it was still too much. Dean liked scruff, not this!

“Wha…Cas?”

“I’ll be right back!” Castiel sprang up, setting the bowl on the table and vanishing from site, leaving on the sound of rustling feathers and I Love Lucy to keep Dean company.

“Thanks for the stew,” Dean muttered, aggressively slurping another spoonful.

Castiel reappeared a moment later in the bathroom, but refused to tell Dean what he was up to.

“Cas? Are you alright in there?” Dean called, waiting to no avail for a response.

In the bathroom, Castiel was not alright. He was angling the razor to the best of his ability, trying to discover how to get his scruff exactly like Dr. Sexy’s.

‘Why can’t I do this?!’ he thought angrily.

He just wanted to make Dean feel better, and maybe he could do so by looking more like the man Dean had expressed interest in. Maybe once he changed himself a bit, Dean would express interest in him.

“Cas?” Dean called again.

As Castiel raised the razor again, he leaned forward and quickly lost his balance on the sopping wet floor. As he feel, he felt a stinging about his right eye and a sharp pain as his head met the floor.

“CAS!” Dean cried as he heard the thump. This time, he jumped up and pounded on the door.

“Are you alright in there?!”

Castiel rubbing the place above his eye and trying to reduce the pain. He had read that the razor was supposed to be wetted, but it had been a pain to keep turning the faucet on and off, so he had let the sink fill and run over a bit. Now, that felt like a foolish idea. It had caused him to slip and injure himself, and Dean was worried.

“I’m alright,” he called through the door. He stood up and dusted himself off before opening the door to meet an anxious Dean.

“I heard a thud and…..Cas, where is your eyebrow?”

Castiel stood before him, scruff gone in some places and thick in others, and totally lacking an eyebrow.

“I wish trying to shave to be like Dr. Sexy,” Castiel explained, feeling almost…well, shy.

Dean laughed, running his fingers over the white line that showed where his eyebrow had clearly been.

“Why would you want to be like him?”

Castiel pressed his lips together, locking his eyes to the floor.

“You appear interested in him. I wanted you to feel the same for me.”

Dean jerked back a bit, surprised at his words. Cas liked him? The poor guy had to be confused! An angel may have some pity to save him from Hell, but like him? No, it couldn’t be. But as Dean stared at the top of Castiel’s bowed head, he felt his heart melt a little bit, in a way it hadn’t in a very, very long time.

Him? Gay. Never. In a committed relationship with an angel, that was wearing a male meat suit? No way. Too weird.

As the two stood in the doorway to the bathroom, Dean made a choice. He would not be gay. He wouldn’t kiss a man, because that was not what he did.

But he would kiss this angel, because he was Castiel, and nothing else. Dean cleared his throat, causing Cas to look up. Dean noted that his ears were red, a nervous habit he had never noticed before, and smiled.

“I think Castiel scruff is hotter than Dr. Sexy scruff.”

Castiel’s troubled expression relaxed and he broke into an enormous grin.

Ah hell. No more women, no more wild sex nights. But he would have Castiel in his adorable sweatpants and lame driving skills and, of course, his chicken stew. And to Dean, that suddenly looked so much better.

So he leaned forward, pressing his lips lightly against Castiel’s finding them to greatly contrast with women’s. Women spent so much time slathering their lips with softener that he usually felt like he was kissing something else. The texture of Castiel’s was so much better, rougher and coarser, and tasting, amazingly, like the chicken stew they had shared.

Castiel was stunned at first, but quickly responded to the kiss, smiling into it and chuckling a little bit as Dean responded in the same manner.

They broke off, both pleased with what had started between them

“I’m back!” Sam called from the entrance.

The pair turned as they heard the door close behind him.

“Guys?”

“Well Cas, we got some splainin’ to do,” Dean chuckled.

Castiel, finally getting a reference, laughed and stole one more kiss, deciding that he liked Dean’s lips against his far more than food.


End file.
